Wednesday, January 19, 2005

j's indie/rock mayhem - 19th january 2005

[tonight was an eclectic show, to say the least. a handful of intriguing callers, including a man who identified himself as a "white man just trying to survive." well, okay. thought surviving kind of went for all living things, but that's alright man. you go on and do your thing. this week and next, WQFS is on temporary schedule while we train new djs. luckily i was able to get my regular time slot for both weeks, so i'm not going anywhere. onward.]

Theme Song - Peaches - "Rock Show"
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the Foreign Exchange - "Let's Move" [this is the much hyped project with phonte of north carolina's little brother and dutch dj/musician nicolay. and wow, this song floored me from the first moment i laid ears on it. from the very, very excellent connected.]
the Coral - "Liezah" [speaking of songs that hooked me from the moment i first heard them. this is classic sounding pop. from their latest, magic and medicine.]
Matt Thackston - "Up to the Highway" [matt is originally from north carolina (eden, to be precise) and now resides out in nashville. his music has a very commercial country sound to it, but his songwriting chops are undeniable, especially on this track. from his latest, better than here.]
X - "In This House That I Call Home" [from their flawless second album, wild gift. post-punk rarely got better.]
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Jonny Polonsky - "How Much Do You Know?" [as i said on the air tonight, 5 and a half years ago, when my show first started, it was j and j's indie/punk mayhem. the other j moved on to other things after the first year, but before he left he introduced me to jonny polonsky. jonny hasn't released a new album since 1996, but lo and behold, here it is in rotation. big, hooky power pop like you wouldn't believe. from his new the power of sound.]
Josh Ritter - "Bright Smile" [the lead track from his latest, hello starling. i have dark eyes myself, so this song has a certain significance. plus, i played it for you.]
Lyle Lovett - "Nobody Knows Me" [one of my favorite lovett songs, period. from and his large band.]
Handsome Boy Modeling School featuring Cat Power - "I've Been Thinking" [my friend michael said it, but it took me hearing it a second time to fully appreciate how crazy it is to hear cat power sound so sexy. this song has chan marshall singing like i've never heard her before. what an unexpected and pleasant surprise. from their latest, white people.]
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the Like Young - "Threshold Person" [by request. big, hooky rock. good stuff.]
the Housemartins - "Bow Down" [norman cook's (aka fatboy slim) old band. i made a comment about smith-esque bands, and yeah, you can definitely hear the resemblance but the housemartins were much more. a great band i wish more people knew about. from their odds and sods collection, now that's what i call quite good.]
the Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Vacuum Boots" [from tepid peppermint wonderland: a retrospective. a perplexing and somewhat amusing title. the massacre have gotten a lot of attention of late thanks to their prime (if not so flattering) feature in the award-winning documentary dig, so having not heard much myself, i gave it a spin. not bad.]
T. Rex - "Mambo Sun" [i felt like groovin'. you know? from electric warrior.]
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the Maroons - "Best of Me" [finally! ambush makes it into rotation. and an edited copy at that! you've heard these guys on my show for a bit now, as they were on my best of 2004 album list. a great collaboration between lateef the truth speaker and chief xcel of blackalicious.]
Killing Joke - "The Wait" [it's hard to describe killing joke accurately. i just know i enjoy their debut self-titled album quite a lot more than i probably should for someone who stopped listening to industrial-esque music some time ago.]
Miles Davis/Adrienne Rich - "Diving into the Strawberry Devil Crab" [a mix-up of "fisherman, strawberry and devil crab" from miles davis' porgy and bess album and a recording of poet adrienne rich reading her poem "diving into the wreck." it actually turned out really well. i've enjoyed doing all these mash-ups on my show.]
Kathleen Edwards - "National Steel" (live) [from the live at the bowery ballroom EP. hey, kathleen, 2005 called. they want a new album. stat.]
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Matthew Sweet - "Dead Smile" [from one of his two latest, kimi ga suki raifu. great power pop.]
the Undertones - "Jimmy, Jimmy" [from one of the greatest debut albums in punk. but then again, in punk, it's mostly the debut albums that are great. eh, whatever.]
Anthrax - "Panic" [by request. the surviving white man wanted to hear some slayer, hatebreed, tragic season (who are local, by the way) or something. unable to dig up much, i went with this new release from anthrax. it's a re-recording of a lot of their most famous songs with new lead singer john bush. from the greater of two evils.]
Mary Lou Lord - "Some Jingle Jangle Morning" [possibly the best reference to "mr. brownstone" ever put to tape. from her excellent got no shadow.]
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Jim White - "Alabama Chrome" [from the #3 album on j's indie/rock top 25 albums of 2004. the quite stunning drill a hole in that substrate and tell me what you see. nothing like an offhanded salute to duct tape.]
10,000 Maniacs with David Byrne - "Let the Mystery Be" (live) [this was originally from their unplugged performance, but in this case was the b-side for a rock the vote benefit single. first off, it's 10,000 maniacs. second off, it has david byrne singing and playing with them. third off, they're covering an iris dement song. you really can't go wrong.]
Bardo Pond - "Quiet Tristan" [ambient noise? i'm not quite sure how to qualify a lot of this bardo pond stuff. it's really not bad though. there is method to the madness and it's a quite enthralling listen from the right frame of mind. from the new cypher documents I collection of mp3 releases.]
Superchunk - "Driveway to Driveway" [from 1994's lovely foolish. they are playing this saturday at local 506 in chapel hill as part of a tsunami benefit show that will also feature a (temporarily) reunited original lineup of sorry about dresden and a blondie cover band among many others. very worthy cause and fantastic music. so check it out.]
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Matt Sharp - "Goodbye West Coast" [from the puckett's versus the country boy EP but also from his self-titled full-length that just came out. this is absolutely nothing like weezer or the rentals. much softer, much more delicate. it's really not bad at all.]
Let's Active - "Easy Does" [so i have a new band to dig into. this is from their album cypress. more great north carolina rock from back in the day.]
the Cash Brothers - "Nebraska" [without a doubt the best song ever written about sitting at a red light, having just been dumped by the love of your life, and listening to springsteen's nebraska album. yes, it is every bit as good as it sounds. from their how was tomorrow? album.]

We'll be back next week and then hopefully we'll be settling back into the same time slot for the spring semester. We'll let you know. Until then.